


yesterday, today, tomorrow

by goldtracing



Series: the future is a fickle thing, so is the past [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cultural Differences, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Identity Issues, Mother-Son Relationship, Poor Life Choices, Recovery, Tatooine Slave Culture (Star Wars), Threats
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:08:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldtracing/pseuds/goldtracing
Summary: Anakin is Vader and Vader is Anakin and he still has to learn that despite the past being glass shards and the future being quicksand, the present is key. Shmi has always been Shmi, a fixed star in her son’s night sky.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader & Shmi Skywalker, Darth Vader & Shmi Skywalker, Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun, Past Padme Amidala/Anakin Skywalker - Relationship, darth vader & darth sidious
Series: the future is a fickle thing, so is the past [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815403
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	1. the past is predatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Darth Vader keeps running from his past, it comes back to bite him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, I’ve taken the liberty to teak certain parts of Star Wars canon so that it fits the story. Enjoy!

> “Every one of us dies more than once in our lifetime in the hearts of our loved ones, and haunt them through the ghosts of our memories.”
> 
> ― Akshay Vasu, The Abandoned Paradise

The past was shattered, incinerated, and buried. There were but a few spider-silk threads that tied him to what once was, and they were mutilated beyond recognition.

Anakin Skywalker was dead, his soul burned away on the banks of a fire river, his body possessed by his shadow and its ruins encased in an iron mausoleum. The result was an ash-coated god of death that was a testament to the weakness of the Republic – and the might of an unending Empire.

Darth Vader was in contrast to what the Jedi claimed to be, shamelessly cruel, because whatever compassion had been systematically burned out of him, liquidated with acid anger. Baptized by fire and born through betrayal, how could he be anything but merciless. In ways, he was a textbook example of how the dark despised the light.

Holding on to the past was a sign of weakness (ironic how only when it was already too late that he took Jedi teachings to heart), so he sought to liquidate his former self, destroy what had been essential to who Skywalker was and thus made him real. Maybe if he believed his lies hard enough then they would become the truth.

However, the past has the nasty habit of coming to bit back when it’s most inconvenient. The Force found it even amusing how people thought they could run away from what they had been.

And so, history one day caught up to Vader, years after he had vowed piety to the shadow and allowed him to poison his mind – in the form he least expected.

The air had been filled with the stench of charred flesh and smoke that day on Ryloth, spilled blood seeping into dusty earth and staining rusty brown crimson. He had halted for a moment, when his senses sharpened by the turbulent fight a split-second in the past had let him detect something out of place.

Slowly he had turned around and had not believed what the Force told him. Yet there she stood, solid and real as the daylight mercilessly beating down on the surface of the planet. She had aged since he had last seen her, some twenty years ago, the brown hair now wispy grey and deep wrinkles surrounding gentle brown eyes.

“It’s a lie, this can’t be. Oh Force, have you betrayed me as well? Is this the punishment for my deeds, that I’m now condemned to hallucinations?”, Vader thought because, he couldn’t, he didn’t want to believe that he knew the old woman before him, hunched and using a walking stick to support herself and still so familiar it tore open necrotic wounds.

If this was reality then it would mean that he had killed all those slavers in vain, it would mean that he had been lied to when word came to him that Shmi Skywalker had been struck down during a slave revolt on Tatooine. That truth would be too bitter to taste and acidic.

In the blink of an eye, the cyborg had his lightsabre in his palm, leather-clad fingers creaking as they firmly wrapped around the cylinder. Caution provided despite rage, he took his time to study the creature that had stopped close to the first corpse and took a few menacing steps towards her. She didn’t even flinch back and even had the nerve to look him in the eye. Bold, as if that could save her.

Yet somehow, he couldn’t cross the few remaining metres between them, not one step further. Could it be, that Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, was afraid of an old croon?

“It is nice to see you again Ani, despite what you’ve become”, she said, voice raspy with old age and filled with so much motherly pain, distinct no matter how much she tried to conceal it. It was reflected in her expression – relief and aching desperation mingling.

The blood red blade shot out of the cylinder, plasma fusing oxygen into ozone and the corrupted crystal sang of ending life. Only now was he able to take a few lumbering strides forward and he raised his weapon up so that it was situated a hair-width from searing to loose skin of the neck. It remained there, hovering, because Vader’s mind was clouded with the anger that stemmed from grief and fear. All it would take was a little push to rapture the windpipe and split the spinal cord and that thought made something in him curl with disgust.

The woman (he refused to imagine her as his mother) didn’t flinch and that helped. Instead the old face hardened with resolute determination and she fixed him with a cool stare.

Alone for calling him that affectionate nickname she should be silenced – only Skywalker’s wife and mother had called him that. It was something scared and personal that should never be uttered again. Besides, Skywalker was dead, and it was idiocy to hold onto a ghost.

“It was very foolish of you to come here. Anakin Skywalker is dead. You are too late to save him”, he boomed, his sentences curt and cutting. For the briefest instance, the blink of an eye that could be written off as his optical lenses playing a trick on him, she flinched.

Drawing some grim satisfaction, he warned her: “You’ll do good to vanish now. I’m feeling rather merciful now after this bloodbath”, he paused to make a sweeping gesture at the fallen spread on rough earth, “so make haste before I change my mind.”

Strange, anybody that somehow was aware that Darth Vader perused the body of the late Hero with No Fear would earn an on-the-spot execution. Yet this bent lady got a second chance from him, which was more than any got from the Sith apprentice.

“There is nothing here for you to find”, he said, the flatline voice that the vocoder synthesised lacking the usual depth of conviction. The fundamental truth that had once been was lost and uncertainty replaced it. Vader blamed it on his emotions that were waging a civil war inside him. There wasn’t fire-hot anger and simmering hate and guilt akin to drowning, there were also the strangest relieve and childish love. They were the reason he was acting out of the ordinary because why else should he display ruth when another facet of him to kill, kill, kill?

She shook her head in a chiding way and calmly stated: “And yet he stands before me. You can’t deceive me. I raised you, so you should know better than to lie to me.”

Behind the death-god mask, a pair of non-existent eyebrows climbed higher and higher. Drawing upon the Dark Side to cloak himself and snuff out that flicker of light that was corroding at him from the inside out, Vader stood still in contemplation. A mistake, because it caused traitorous thoughts to swell to a roaring storm.

“Who are you?”, he demanded. So much was being balanced on the tightrope and he needed her to say that she was somebody else. Or else so much would be in vain, else he would have been shamelessly lied to in utter disrespect.

As long as the illusion wasn’t shattered, he could tell himself the other was frankly a crazy old bat and no soul-searching would follow the madwoman’s deserved end.

“Don’t you even recognize your own mother?”, she patiently questioned, brutal truth matching a weather-hardened face.

The persistent ringing of the Force was becoming irritating, so the juggernaut brought up his strongest shields to block it out.

No, Shmi Skywalker was dead, and this had to be some ludicrous test of his master’s. He’d have to disappoint the shrivelled old prune today, he wasn’t keen on letting himself be tormented. For all the mercy his withered heart held, he’d make it quick.

“It is tragic, that you had to become this, but that was your choice to make as much as it breaks my heart. So, tell me, what caused you to go down this path?”, she inquired, just making her son pause before he could execute that finishing move.

Why did that sombre expression make what was left of his sanity twist with guilt?

No longer could be ignore the Force singing the truth or the way his doubts strummed together in a bitter symphony. Red rage turned to ice. If he were still wholly organic a different scene would have played out, so instead of falling to his knees, he stood as unmovable as a statue.

The enforced push and pull of oxygen by the life support suit, was akin to rough sand grating at exposed nerves – he couldn’t think straight.

“Mother?”, he asked and despite the monotonousness of the vocoder, his desperation was clear, even pathetic. Carefully he thumbed the activation button of his weapon and the crimson plasma shrank back with an audible hiss. Even the cybernetic fingers loosened, and the hilt dropped to the ground with an evident thumb.

Briefly, alleviation flashed over an aged face and there were tears in her eyes as she nodded and mumbled: “Yes”, quietly.

“How? … What?”, he stammered. How embarrassing, the Supreme Commander stuttering like a little schoolboy. If Sidious were present, he would either laugh at the absurdity of the situation or sneer at the human sentimentality on bland display.

For the first time in decades, there was a soft, sincere smile on Shmi’s lips, and she suggested calmly: “We have a lot to talk about. Let us go somewhere else and share stories.”

The day just was filled with surprises. Nobody had so calmly asked something of Lord Vader ever since his conception. It only ever was the back and forth of command or desperate pleas exchanged for taunting and threats. Then again, Vader didn’t have a mother, just a master and a galaxy to force on its knees.

“Then come”, she decided, and turned her back on him. With the reluctance that came from having his reality placed upon an ambos and shattered, he strided after her as she lead him away from sightless corpses. Eventually, after enough time had trickled by, she stopped in the shade of a rocky alcove and sat down cross leg with the strange fluidity she always possessed.

He mimicked her, still dazed from the revelation with that fact being apparent in all his cumbersome movements. Pain shot up from wrongly attached prosthetics as he settled down. Then silence. Oppressing silence that was only cut by his harsh breaths and the winds that howled through barren rock formations and dry plains.

Despite being a good head shorter than him, she still was imposing with her keen eyes. Imposing the way even the kindest parental figure could be. And between the sternness and motherly affection that couldn’t die, she was crestfallen. Of course.

“You’ve changed”, she remarked sadly.

Yes, he was the shadow and the Dark Side clawed at him like an anxious lover as he indulged in memories and the living past in front of him.

Naturally, Anakin would have given his mother a warm welcome, just in time catching himself to perform the ritualistic Tatooine greeting before fiercely hugging her. Now, as a Sith…

“So, have you”, he countered. Much, he added privately because while Skywalker’s mother had always been gentle and firm, long years in slavery hadn’t been able to make her so unyielding – that was something also broken chains could have done.

“Indeed I have, I have adapted so that better things may come”, she replied with a wry smile. “As painful as it was it was necessary.”

“Why was it? Where have you been all these years?”, he urgently interrogated. There were so many questions and yearned to ask: How had she lived all this time unnoticed? Why hadn’t he sensed her presence?

A voice that sounded annoyingly like Kenobi muttered in his mind: “Patience! All answers will be revealed in time.” It didn’t damn the rush of questions, a flash flood to sudden to be predicted.

Why hadn’t she come to him sooner?

The Dark Side wedge itself in his head like a parasite and incitations of betrayal. That she, like so many others, had double-crossed and perversely crawled back to claim love and loyalty. Just like Padme had, just like Ahsoka would one day. Because how could Shmi Skywalker love him if he had slaughtered the powerless man that had been her son? How…

The answer was the light that chased the shadows away.

“I managed to get my chip removed before matters got nasty. Once the revolts started, people from a freedom trail got my off Tatooine and after that, the destination was anywhere but Hutt Space. I started my own life, slowly but surely.

“I kept myself afloat doing odd jobs here and there, be it working as a ship hand or a waiter. It was enough to go by, never enough to travel to far to the Core. There was a reason I could never come near Coruscant.

“Though, it was quite a new experience to earn my money and make such important choices for myself”, she elaborated.

Thoughtfully she drew patterns in the sandy ground and her eyes glazed over as she lost herself in memories. Then, she snapped out of it and said deciding: “And still, I sought you out to talk about what happened to you.”

Internally, he seized up. Here, Shmi was prying at secrets and faults that even his master only was aware of to an extent. Things he repressed with embarrassment because he was selfish like all Sith were. His selfishness lay in how enamoured he was with his suffering. Nobody was privy to them, and yet…

Both sides of the Force were warring for him, clawing at his sanity as if it were a game of tug-of-war – the Dark noxious with its lies and the Light scalding with accusations.

Seeing the awkwardness and the way he clammed up, she brought forth: “The day the Jedi freed you was one of the happiest days of my life. I’ve always wanted the best for you and even though it torn me apart to see you leave. I was relieved, I was glad, that you could live that I could have never hoped to give you.

“Ani, it breaks my heart to see you willingly wrap yourself in chains. You are miserable and in pain.”

She swallowed harshly and the next words were pressed. “You’ve always known the importance of making your own decisions. So, why the Sith?”

That last sentence sent his mind whirling. “How do you know about the Sith?”, he asked slowly. The general populace had known only titbits about the Jedi when the Republic had been eroding. Sith and Dark Siders had therefore been even more mystical and vague to them, a slave couldn’t know of them. He hadn’t been aware of the crushing burden that came with giddy power until he had been reborn.

“Don’t you remember? There used to be Sith on Tatooine”, she explained clearly. Long fingers traced figures in dry ground with practiced strokes and it was then that Vader recalled that his mother used to form pictograms in the sand as she told him stories.

Like the krayt dragons, the Sith were legends that had once wandered the face of the hideous plant, fighting and spilling blood as the desert was harsh and it made those that survived it even harsher and those that already lacked compassion malicious.

Their cruelty had been legendary.

And he, in all his ignorance and dazed aspirations had forgotten about the stories. Skywalker had laid them aside to appease the Jedi. Vader casted them away since it belonged in the past and his history was one of falsehoods and vanquishing betrayal. If he hadn’t, maybe it would have saved his life.

“Before the Hutts rose to such power, there were the Sith and they ruled over the planet as if they were gods. They held slavery on a pedestal because they thought the strong must always ruthlessly lord over the weak. In their minds, that was the natural order of things. That way of think echoed in their relationships.

“The student was only a tool for the master and the master was only an obstacle for the student to trick and kill once there was nothing more to take and so that student could replace the master. So, the cycle continued”, she recounted, the barest hint of anger in her voice.

It was the bitter truth because she always was honest with him. Very early in his life, Shmi had figured out that her child could figure out when he was being lied to, and didn’t take well to it.

Still, it didn’t mean that he would automatically except it.

Instead of shaking his head, he tilted it slightly forward in a show of interest.

“The Sith have changed since then. They had to adapt.”

“That doesn’t change that you have blood on your hands.”

The beginnings of a tantrum were lurking at the fringes of his rationality. For all her kindness, his mother had always been firm and had wanted to understand. That meant that some answers and questions came at the expense of his patience.

“There is always a price for peace”, he growled, nerf leather creaking as he flexed his fingers. Anger briefly flowed prominently in the Force, but Shmi didn’t allow it to control her. She never had been a woman to raise her voice or act on impulse – unlike him.

“Yes, but the price for peace isn’t payed in excessive blood spilling. Violence only breeds more violence and you should know that aggression and oppression go hand in hand.”

“You saw how blind and corrupt the Republic was. Never in a thousand years would they have found us if it hadn’t been for that accident. And even when they evidence of slavery right in front of them, they turned a blind eye”, the black warrior countered.

The Republic had been rotten to the core – he had witnessed enough of it as a Jedi – and what Palpatine had done had been a mercy death to a failing system. And yet …

“And what has the Empire done for you that the Republic didn’t?”, his mother asked gently.

“I have the power to change things for the better. Because I am now rid of…”, he began and broke off immediately to rethink his answer.

What excess baggage was he really free of now? Everything that he had once held dear had crumbled to dust and his body was a ruin of his former prowess.

But no, hadn’t that been all been Anakin Skywalker who had been to weak to salvaged what he cherished? Then how was a piece of long-gone times that he loathed his own and not that of that lesser man? His head swam, gradually evoking white-hot fury.

“What are you doing here if you knew you wouldn’t find your son? He is only a corpse now, the Dark Side has ensured that”, he goaded her, drawing on the fact that had dawn upon him just moments prior.

It was more comfortable than accepting the truth. Living the lie and sinking in its toxic sweetness was far easier. Loving somebody again would only kill him.

“Because you are my son and I’ll love you no matter what.”

Yet the selfless love of a mother couldn’t so simply thaw a dead, cold heart.

“You are a senile old fool. I’m not Anakin Skywalker”, he snapped waspishly to thinly veil his soul deep confusion and shame. Nevertheless, it was conviction that made him speak.

“You really want to reject the name your very own mother gave you. No, I named you such and you will always be Anakin to me”, she stubbornly defended.

Then, his focus shifted from being murky, like looking though milky glass, to clear and even painful in its clarity. He had disappointed one of the people he loved the most – he could see it by how her shoulders were slightly slumped and how the sadness on that soft face that made her older than she really was.

Still it didn’t make any sense as to his actually identity. Skywalker or Vader?

Fate tended to be cruel to its favourites. Quite like the Force that whispered to him in its ageless voice: “Who are you really, child? You have to decide!”, almost like it was sadistically taunting him. If he didn’t know better, he’d say it was amusing itself was messing with all of the Emperor’s carefully constructed plans – and with him.

“You shouldn’t have come here!”, he bellowed, all Sith in the way be wanted to wallow in his misery instead of excepting there was a way out of his suffering.

The deep bass bounced off rock wall on echoed ghostly.

He reached for his lightsabre and only then realised that he had left it where he dropped it. Tapping into his connection to the Force, he proceeded to raise his find in an all too familiar gesture …

…only to falter.

Shmi was regarding him calm acceptance and the Force reflected that. (After all, she knew if you showed the predator fear, then it would kill you.)

His mother continued as if she hadn’t realised that she had almost crossed the threshold to the afterlife:

“How much longer do you want to call somebody else Master?”

He flinched. Freedom was something he had always longed for, a reason he loved flying so much. Yet he constantly found himself bowing down to someone. As of late, it had also become excoriating to bend his knee in submission. He really was a hypocrite.

“Once I told myself never again. I still want it to be that way”, he breathed faintly, the vocoder catching his words and amplifying them. And his words shredded his throat like crushed glass. Really, to so many of his vows and had only paid lip service.

She nodded and edged him on: “Then what do you really want?”

“I want to be my own person”, he answered and sounded so much like a child despite his monotone voice. Maybe that was exactly what mattered.

His mother stood up and approached him with an outstretched hand, as if he were still a little boy and not a monster shrouded in black.

“Then there is no time to lose”, she whispered and after a moment of weighing the odds he grabbed the hand. It was small in his massive mechanical hand, and bony and strong. With that, Anakin turned towards the light again, ever so slightly, and it burned with its cleansing fire. He rose and let her take him with her despite that he knew that everything was stacked against him.

It could only last so long until Sidious found out that he had deserted and took action. To say the least, he wouldn’t be pleased.

However, that didn’t mean they stood no chance. Anakin Skywalker was alive, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To say the least, you can see I have my very own opinions on Vader.  
> 1\. Shmi was Anakin’s mother and Vader tried to dissociate with everything that was significant to Anakin Skywalker. So really anybody, no matter who they had previously been to Anakin, would have had a hard time reaching through to him.  
> 2\. It goes without saying that nobody likes to have their whole world view shattered. And on top of that, people tend to fall in love with their own suffering simply because it is easier to contend that your life is shit instead of doing something about it. Add that to a huge amount of inherent stubbornness and you have one big problem.  
> What do you guys think? Should I continue? Leave a comment!


	2. the future starts now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fresh out of realisations, reality has a hazy, dream-like quality. Now they have to get off Ryloth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve finally managed to motivate myself to continue with this story. It’s true, it has too much potential and the idea just wouldn’t stop haunting me.   
> Besides, they haven’t been many stories where Vader has a slow redemption arc, not to mention where he has to deal with his mother – I just can’t resist seeing where this story shall go myself.

> _Life is every bit as devious as Death. It too can wear a hooded coat. It too can slip into town, lurk in an alley, or wait in the back of a tavern._
> 
> _― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow_

It was like walking through a dream. The world was blurry with reality having a syrup-like consistency with a background static that buzzed in his ears and grated his nerves more than his enforced breathing ever could. Vader considered that it might as well be a figment of his imagination, because it was simply too good to be true.

In reality, his mother couldn’t be there, because her flesh had long since turned to dust and her skeleton to stone beneath to flowing sands of Tatooine. This was just another fata morgana in the wasteland of his mind and any moment he’d wake up to discover that all the bittersweet revelations were never true.

Or this was just another ploy of his master. The old Sith was powerful, granted, and as it was with every living being, there were limits to his power. Something the courtiers would disregard and would speculate about how the Emperor could walk into people’s minds and play with their fears in their dreams. As with all tall tales, there could be a core of truth to that rumour and Sidious was really dripping poison in his ears, making him…

Yet his mother’s hand was firmly gripping his own, in that unyielding grasp with which she had always clung onto life with. Briefly he wondered if the sensors in his prosthetics were malfunctioning or if this was a drug induced hallucination of the sort he suffered in the haze of repetitive medical procedures. Or the kind of illusions that some poor fools on a distant world had once used in an attempt to liquidate him.

The Force sniggered as it whirled around him, no longer pitch black, rather storm cloud grey as it mirrored the torn state, he was in.

“ _You’ve always been so keen to push all the good in your life away. Try to accept once in your lifetime that miracles happen”,_ it chided him with its disembodied voice, one that possessed a largely staticky quality to it as opposed to its usual fluid smoothness.

After all that had happened to him, of the overall tragedy his life had at one point devolved to, why shouldn’t he. It was better to reject fiction than be bum rushed by reality later. He had learned those lessons the hard way, through charred flesh and ill-fitted prosthetics.

Yet here he was wandering the wastelands of Ryloth, his insides turning to fire, to ice and to fire again as his reality melted like hot wax and reformed into something new entirely. There was the Dark and the Light and they were both in a strange equilibrium, as if they had decided to wait with their conflict until he was surefooted again.

“We’ll be there in a few minutes. I managed to find a nice little cave to hid the shuttle in”, his mother said to break the near awkward silence that was reigning between them. It wasn’t much, yet it was enough to ground him somewhat after his world view had been dissolved and reassembled into something completely new.

“How did you even get here?”, he found himself asking, his own deep bass ultimately alien in his own ears. His flagship was in orbit above the planet, intercepting transmissions and ships and preventing them from entering the planet’s atmosphere or leaving it without permission. His subordinates knew better than to be anything less than optimal with their jobs.

There were stormtrooper battalions on the surface, siphoning pockets of resistance away and ensuring that law and order was restored. While his mother was sly in her own way, and the stormtroopers a tad less thorough than the clones had been, he had his doubts she had have been able to trick the finest of the military.

At that, Shmi’s lips turned up to a cunning smile.to which he wasn’t accustomed at all. “You can’t stop somebody from passing when they are already here. I arrived a few days ago and I’ve been waiting ever since.”

One answer that gave rise to a hoard of new questions. They swamped him, thoughts becoming more muddled than ever with the inquiries piling up until he was suffocating on them. When Palpatine had ultimately betrayed him by turning him into a weapon, he had come to think that nothing could surprise him anymore. The Force just had a funny way of proving him wrong whenever he vowed that something would never happen.

His mother turned her head to face him, not faltering one step as they made their way around a bend and headed down a canyon. Through the optical lenses of his helmet, the entire world was simply painted in shades of red. How ironic, the first time he saw his parent again in half an eternity and he couldn’t _see_ her as she really was.

“I know you have a lot of questions; this has no doubt been quite a shock for you. But please, wait a bit. There is a time and place for that”, she assured him. Part of him that was still Vader felt impatience rear up in indignation, enraged that a mere powerless croon dare postpone sharing knowledge that he had every right to know. The reawakened part that was and had always been Anakin Skywalker railed those impulses in, because if there had been a person in the galaxy with whom he would contend with waiting and adherence, then it was his mother.

“Of course, mom”, he mumbled. And didn’t that last word taste so utterly strange on his tongue. Maybe it was because Sith Lords standardly don’t have mothers, don’t have parents that love them and comfort them.

It wasn’t long until they reached the ship, the walk being absolved wordlessly from that point on. Vader in his own daze, Shmi with her iron clad hope and both of them with insecurity about what the future would hold for both of them.

The Maxillipede shuttle sat in the yawning mouth of a cave, situated neatly so that the afternoon shadows hid it from plain view. A relic from the Clone Wars, a separatist ship that stirred up memories long forgotten.

Memories of his head, of strange behaviour evoked by malfunctioning chips, and…

No! Fiercely, he clamped down on those memories. Because while he had accepted the truth that Shmi Skywalker was his mother, all the other memories of camaraderie and friendship were too much for him to deal with at the moment.

Yet they ghosted just below the surface of his consciousness, seething that they had rudely been shoved aside and vowing to come back. To distract himself, he focused on the appearance of the ship.

It clearly had seen better days. It was rusty in places where it wasn’t caked in dirt and dust. Old age and weather had made the markings undistinguishable and he only glimpsed the fait outlines of where they had once been due to the analytical data his lenses provided. Yet when his companion pressed a button on a small remote, the ramp lowered with a quiet hiss, evidence of time invested in taking care of the shuttle.

Shmi didn’t take the first step, didn’t storm up the gangplank the moment it settled in the dirt with a dull thud, and instead gestured for Vader to go first. That he did, somewhat hesitantly at first, because he was treading in the domain of somebody that was more familiar to him than any other person in the galaxy and had at the same time had become a stranger in the years apart. In short, somebody whose opinion mattered.

_„The Dark doesn’t hesitate, Lord Vader. It lays in wait, it feigns surrender. What it doesn’t do is cower in insecurity. That is for the weak, for the Light”,_ sneered a voice in his mind that sounded awfully like Sidious. Not a big surprise really – the Emperor had anchored himself firmly in his apprentice’s mind, the only moral guide after the later had slaughtered the Jedi and killed his wife.

Setting his shoulders back as far as the suit would allow him, the Sith then strode up the ramp, not even waiting for the other. Per instinct he stormed off to the cockpit and settled down into the pilot’s chair. While there had always been a wealth of competent pilots in the Empire, Vader had still always preferred flying his ships personally. Bitterly he recalled that as Anakin he had been afforded that privilege more often than now, as Supreme Commander, before shoving that recollection back into his subconscious.

Unlike usual, it didn’t go silently, rather failing and kicking all the way, like the more vicious of terrorists when they were dragged to the brig for interrogation. Then his mother joined him, a concerned look on her wrinkled face, and he abandoned the attempts to once more segregate himself from his past.

“Some things haven’t changed. You’re still so awfully eager to fly”, she remarked wistfully, and that cut deeper than any weapon could. There he sat – a neigh impenetrable fortress of strength and determination, clad and heavy armour and as far removed from the galaxy as a being could be whilst being in the thick of it – a Sith Lord having his insecurities pried open by a few innocent words.

Words that reminded him of how much he had lost and still whipped up streams of nostalgia. Shmi was also steeped in the same notion, reminding herself of better, simpler times – ones with her son – to the point those memories were shredding her heart.

It made Vader very self-conscious for the first time in years. In the navy and in politics, he couldn’t care less about the multitude of opinions and him, as long as sentients didn’t plague him with their incompetence and their failings or act out of line with gratuitous amounts of disrespect and self-righteousness. His sole tangible parent was a different story because she was one of the few people that had ever really mattered to him – and now the only person in the galaxy that really counted.

Rising regret tangled in his throat, and if it weren’t for the respirator unyieldingly pumping oxygen in his lungs, then his breath would have hitched. This had been a mistake, it occurred to him as he found himself unable to rasp an answer, and not for the first time either. Yet it was too late to revoke his choices – he had closed the door on his past by acknowledging the truth and the future lay shrouded in mystery.

_“If you hadn’t forsaken everything you had once been, then the memories of who you once were wouldn’t sting so much,”_ the Force pointed out, adding insult to injury. Angerly, he threw his shields up further to block out its voice out. He had had good reasons for doing all in his power to kill the past, even though he had been irrevocably drawn to it in all his hypocrisy.

“Always. It is the only way I can attain any semblance of freedom”, he pushed forwards once he unclogged his throat. A truth and a very bitter one at that. One that was answered by a crestfallen expression, full of concern and pity that he couldn’t bear to look at. Since she hadn’t rebuked him in any way for promptly taking control over her vessel, he then proceeded with the take-off preparations as a way to distract himself. Thank the Force she didn’t continue the thread of that conversation and opted to gracefully settle in the co-pilot seat and watch her estranged son.

The engines emitted a pleasant hum as Vader expertly engaged the thrusters, lifting the shuttle off the ground and then moved out of the cave entrance. Soon enough, they were climbing in altitude, clouds wisping past the view ports. Ryloth now lay behind them, the rest of the galaxy with its endless possibilities ahead. As well as his flagship.

It then dawned on the Sith that he had made a grave mistake by acting thoughtlessly on his impulses, an unfortunate habit of Skywalker’s that he had assumed that he had curbed by now. Apparently not, for he was without a plan and hadn’t even asked the instigator of this turn of events on how she intended to proceed. It all made him feel very foolish – Sidious would have electrocuted him for such an error.

At a loss, he sharply turned his helmeted head to Shmi, who was regarding him with all the patience and compassion of a sage. She was waiting for him to spring forth a brilliant tactic – he could deduce that from the fine ribbons of anticipated she was wrapping herself in. Unfortunately, he had none; yet.

“When you formulated your plan, how did you intend to get me off the planet unnoticed?”, he asked pensively.

Years ago, his mother had always been good at calculating future enterprises. The life of a slave was an extremely hard one and a lot of thought had to be invested on where to tread if one didn’t have the intention of suffering extensively. And Shmi had excelled at dodging the worst mines without losing her balance, all while keeping her child safe as well. No doubt she had refined those and extended them to her current activities.

“I planned on hiding you with me for a few days, and then flying to the other side of the planet. From there, we would have taken the Mumble’s Turnabout to Tatooine”, she elaborated.

Vader inwardly groaned. Definitely an escape artist – he would have to ask her how it came to that – but no tactician. And the muja fruit on top of the metaphorical cake was that his home world was the last place he wanted to return to. Upon having attained a new semblance of freedom, he was oddly moody, even by the standards of a chronically irritated Lord of the Sith.

“Yet that wouldn’t have worked in the first place. While my men do fear me, they are loyal and in the extreme case would have conducted a search for me. Nothing can rival their determination either, so that plan is invalid”, he countered, calculating the odds at hand. Years of having only tactics and strategy and logistics, hatred and revenge plans to distract him from his memories had honed his skills.

However, he had acted on instinct when he had took off and directed the Maxillipede to his flagship, a testimony that he still charged into the fry without think everything through. Yet, the situation could not only be salvaged, but used to their advantage.

“You’re right”, she admitted, a bit wooded but nonetheless genuine. The officers of the Exactor were not so humble when it came to mistakes. Although some of them had learned fast that the thing that their superior hated more than incompetence, was when it came paired with lies and flimsy excuses.

“I didn’t come up with a better plan. And sadly, my resources wouldn’t have allowed for anything more fail-safe. So, what do you think we shall do?”, she carried on, and again Vader felt his throat constrict, painfully due to the internal injuries he sported.

Edging him onwards to find his own solutions had been Shmi’s way of encouraging her child to learn and think for himself. Anakin Skywalker had always been glad for his mother’s attitude, for her constantly inquiring for his view. Now he wasn’t Anakin Skywalker anymore; nor was he Darth Vader, the Emperor’s enforcer. Rather, he dwelled in the twilight.

“My staff isn’t privy to all my doings, nor do they dare object to my orders unless absolutely necessary. Should I leave without a well-founded explanation, then they have to except it. So that is what we will doing”, he explained once he finally managed to find the words. Blunt as usual, and utterly without the finesse and clarity that marked good education – his social skills had deteriorated after years of not requiring them.

It was evident by the thinly veiled confusion that bled into her Force signature, and how she nonetheless she solemnly nodded. There wasn’t any time to restructure his words and give a better account, since they were nearly past the stratosphere and his Star Destroyer was looming overhead.

The Exactor, in all her imperial majesty. His flag ship that he had actually grown fond of over the course of the last few years. Thus, the thought that he would never set foot aboard her again saddened him. Naturally, there was also the contemplation of simply going back there and hiding his mother in his quarters, keeping her there with him an safe. Intellectually, however, he was aware that that plot was doomed to fail.

For all that the Emperor thought that he was absolutely secretive, Vader knew that there were spies dogging his every step and reporting his every movement back to his Master. He had begun the job of weeding them about, strangulating in front of a preferably large audience or sending them on suicide missions. Yet he also acknowledged that he hadn’t ratted out all of them yet, hadn’t found excuses to execute all of them yet. And if anything, Sidious would exploit any additional weakness his apprentice would present.

So, while impulsive and reckless on the levels that were only usual of Anakin Skywalker, deserting was the best option.

“Incoming shuttle, this is the ISD Exactor. State your identification and your purpose”, the com above their heads crackled, the worn equipment fussing and adding static to the voice.

Vader took a moment to gather himself, and tilted his mask to the right to study Shmi. She was looking at him expectantly and despite her collected appearance, there were trances of fear and anxiety that only he could sense. She was counting on him. He couldn’t allow himself to falter now.

He reached forward he opened the channel for the holocom system. The grainy hologram of a young communications officer flashed into existence, a man that blankly stared at him for a moment before visibly flinching.

“Code seven besh five three cresh aurek, Ensign. That will be all you need to know”, the Sith stated, amusedly watching as the one registering what he said blanch further with every word. That had been the personal code of the Emperor’s loyal enforcer, one that was changed every other day. One that wasn’t to be questioned by any officer or trooper.

Something that the unfortunate soul before him was well aware of, including the possible consequences of insubordination. Though the Ensign didn’t fidget to much, or tug at his collar in the manner Vader was used to from young personal – and also detested – he still stuttered: “Y-yes Lord V-v-vader.”

Yet somebody didn’t care very much about the strict hierarchy of the Imperial Navy, nor that one wasn’t supposed to become curious and ask unwarranted questions to a chronically irritated warrior, for a second figure appeared in the hologram.

“Lord Vader”, Admiral Polik commented, “leaving us so soon?”

Gloved hands creaked as they tightened around the controls. The uppity Admiral was one the of the people aboard the ship ahead that Vader wanted to deal with the least. Polik was one of those characters where the crew placed bets on when he was going to die, for they all knew that the man had the astute talent of treading on the Dark Lord’s toes without giving much reason for an execution.

“Yes, my duties demands I be elsewhere”, he replied, pretending to ignore the prying curiosity and condemnation in the other man’s tone. The effete face of the spoiled Coruscanti brat distorted into a frown, as if he imagined that he could command Darth Vader around. His next words only confirmed that haughtiness:

“And what about the invasion on Ryloth? We are not done there yet.”

He knew the barb was meant for him, an accusation that he was scarping when they needed him. That remark hit closer to home than the Admiral could ever dream of, yet that was something that he didn’t need to know. Reaching out with the Force, Vader exercised some pressure on the fool’s windpipe, not enough to kill him, but still enough that he was futilely clawing at his collar.

Shmi had ceased entering data into the navicomputer and doing the calculations for the hyperspace jump to look at the spectacle unfolding. She sat there transfixed; eyes widened slightly from Vader could see. Despite the fear that she felt, she wasn’t judging, rather observing before she came to a conclusion. The bitter acid of disappointing somebody that meant something to him rose inside of him. It served to fuel his agitation, to feed the insistent need to get out of here. Raising his index finger in another trademark gesture of him, he exhorted sharply:

“I presume that won’t be an issue since you are competent enough to complete the task without my aid. Should that not be the case, then I’ll see it fit to replace you.”

It was a jibe of his own, one that carried much more weight than anything Polik could ever say. While the Admiral possessed the political acumen to use his connections to snag himself a position high up in the navy, he lacked the prudence that good politicians had. Therefor, threats were more often than not necessary to keep him in check.

Now they flew past the bridge as closely as a pilot would ever dare, causing the bridge crew of the Star Destroyer to track the shuttles movements. Vader could feel their collective surprise and astonishment follow him as he directed the ship to the vantage point. The tipping beside him resumed, fingers furiously dancing across the keys.

“I look forward to reading your report”, he said dryly to the hologram, not waiting from a reaction from the choking idiot before cutting off the connection. Without further ado, he pressed down a lever, and the stars elongated to hair-thin lines as they exited real space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I’ve just realised in what sort of quagmire I jumped in by starting things. Keeping Shmi alive and the circumstances around it drastically change the course of events of the lives of the Skywalker’s. So if you have any questions, see any plot hole developing, please go ahead and share your thoughts in the comments!


End file.
